-Down to Earth Reason: development projects and encroachments In the past three decades, the Maharashtra state has lost a whopping 1,610 sq km of forests, says the annual administrative report of the Maharashtra forest department. Most of this loss, says the report, is due to either development projects or encroachment. According to the report, the forest area in the state totalled 62,971 sq km in 1984-85, which included 42,610 sq km of reserve...
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Half of Yavatmal’s soil not meant for cotton: study -Aparna Pallavi
-Down to Earth District known for farmers' suicides has shallow soil depth which has very little capacity to retain water; report recommends switch to traditional millets, oilseeds Around half of the soil in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra, known both for suicides and for Bt cotton, is unsuitable for cotton cultivation, says a recent report from the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning (NBSS & LUP) at Nagpur. The report,...
More »Cloud burst pushes farmers back to square one-Giji K Raman
-The Hindu MARAYUR (IDUKKI, Kerala): Raja is a traditional farmer in Kanthallur village who makes a living out of vegetable cultivation in his three-acre Land. Disaster struck him on Monday in the form of cloud burst. Seeds of cabbage, carrot, garlic and beans were washed away and the Land on which he and his wife toiled to sow the seeds after the summer rain was turned in a slush of accumulated garbage. Raja...
More »Banana fibre has good market potential-MJ Prabu
-The Hindu Banana is cultivated in Erode district all through the year. Every year, after the plant bears fruits the main stem (called pseudo stem) needs to be removed, since the main plant starts to wither and the crop continues to grow through offshoots for two or more years. Normally farmers employ labour to either cut or uproot the pseudo stems and throw them by the roadside. For this, a farmer needs...
More »Farmers look for green shoots-Ajay Vir Jakhar
-The Business Standard They were unimpressed by the UPA's misguided socialism, but they worry about the new regime's free-market orientation too Consider this paradox. The Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was decimated in the elections in spite of several years of good monsoon and rising agricultural production. Consider another paradox. This was the regime that implemented policies that were presumed to be pro-farmer: the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the...
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